I'm extremely biased because I think any effort to "normalize" a 40-mile commute is poison to any environment, but I still don't get why, if everyone working at places like Google want to live in SF, why can't Google and co. just have offices in the city?<p>I get that they wouldn't be able to build their own little disneyworlds that way, but instead of having Google build an entire ecosystem, they could just have offices and people could just <i>go downtown to eat</i>, or not need laundry services because they don't lose 2 hours a day in a bus.<p>If offices were built closer to the city, they could be smaller but I'm fairly convinced most people would consider it an upgrade to quality of life in general.<p>When I did some work in Tokyo, going outside at lunch and just breathing some fresh air during the 10 minutes spent transiting really helped to refresh the mind.<p>I've never worked in Google-like environment, but the whole closed-off , prison-like state of the campus seems very off-putting. It's basically the business equivalent of gated communities with their own services, to the detriment of services shared with everyone. I can get why people can get mad.
"Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation," they wrote on flyers left near his house. "He is also your neighbour."<p>What were those people thinking? They're subtly but very clearly trying to intimidate that guy. This is like saying "We don't want the likes of you around here."<p>If those protesters really wanted to do something against surveillance and control they should hold those accountable who are responsible for the NSA disaster and things like Guantanamo. Instead, they chose to pick on an individual who isn't any more responsible for those issues than a factory worker producing weapons is for the war crimes committed with these weapons.<p>If they want to start a revolution they should be heading to Washington, D.C. instead of starting a petty revolt by bullying some guy who's neither responsible for the issues at hand nor for their own failures in life.<p>If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious behaviour then we can't have enough of it.
There is one thing that I've really come to love and respect about the city of San Francisco. They fight for what they want. I've seen protests for everything ranging from wars, to working conditions, to America's Cup worker wages. Most other places would just get rolled over by whomever has the money. Underneath this issue, there are some serious socioeconomic issues at hand that need to be addressed.<p>One thing I've done to try and give back is during the holiday season, create some care packages and hand them out to the homeless. Put together basic stuff like dental floss, razors, deodorant, hard candy, socks, pop-corn, etc in a zip-lock bag. As I walked around the city and saw homeless people, I would give them a bag. It was about $400 bucks and about 4 hours of time between two people to make 20 bags. All you have to do is hand them out as you're doing your daily things around the city. You would be surprised at how eloquent, smart, and appreciative some of the people on the street actually are. If you live in San Francisco, you _know_ you're going to run into someone homeless on any given day.<p>That being said, I realize that I'm not the regular San Francisco transplant and most Engineers can't logically rationalize giving something away for free to someone who has done "nothing" for them.
That is what you get <i>if you're going to San Francisco</i>. The city has been a left/liberal activist stronghold since long before Google even existed. And yeah, things like gentrification and private luxury buses do tend to provoke that crowd.<p>Maybe Google should consider relocating to a military town in Texas. It seems there is a great convergence between Google's massive (and permanently growing) data collection and the total surveillance efforts of the government.
This is a quintessential embarrassment of riches. San Fran is powered by a real 21st century economy, which many other cities and countries are trying to recreate, and you still find something to complain about? What's the solution here? Not have tech companies that employ thousands of people (for upper-middle class wages) in the area?! Not have thousands of young educated people from all over the country and the world, want to move to, work and live in the city? Not have those employees wanting to live in the city, but instead go down the route of the 1950-1980s generations and settle suburbia, and leave the downtown-core decrepit and crime-ridden?<p>Even in this specific case, what's wrong with a corporation providing a mass transit option to their workers so they don't have to drive in and needlessly congest the roads and pollute the environment.
The underlying problem, as with all property bubbles including the UK's, is planning restrictions.<p>In the past, people would move to areas of high employment from areas of low employment, and new housing was built for the economic migrants - this is how cities expanded. Now, restrictions on building new accommodation entrench expensive neighbourhoods, and mean economic migrants <i>can't</i> move nearer to the employment. This leads to both a property bubble market and lower employment overall in the nation.<p>This was all proposed/explained in this article a few months ago:<p>"Stay Put, Young Man", <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2013/features/stay_put_young_man047332.php?page=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_...</a><p>(discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854</a> )
Is this really happening? If it is, it brings up an interesting issue.<p>Private public transport can out compete public transport. But then school buses already do this as well (compared to Europe). Though I did commute using SF buses, and I fully understand why one would not prefer ones kids to travel on them, and even why one would prefer company buses.<p>As for rents, true, but can that not mostly be blamed on restrictive building regulations? Not so much with regards to standards as well with regards to limits to flats and highrise buildings. As there is an undisputed market demand for more housing in the bay-area.<p>Imho protesters are a tad misguided in who they are targeting.
Guardian, what about a link to the study? Or to the protestors' pages? It's called hypertext for a reason.<p>The study is here: <a href="http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer-shuttles.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer-shuttles....</a>
It smacks of 'protest chic'. Cool to wave signs somebody else made and get in the new for being all liberal.<p>If those guys were going to a factory job, they'd be ok neighbors. But because they're going to a better job, it's cool to make trouble for them.
Christ, it's painful to read about these people with such stupid, lazy attitudes and opinions - yet somehow still able to muster the energy to go out and throw a huge tantrum and make a huge mess for other people. Instead of thinking constructively about how to make themselves genuinely more valuable to other humans, they just bitch and moan about what they believe themselves entitled to - conditions which were never contractually promised to them. Yeesh. Admirable in a way, I suppose, but still.<p>Still, this is a really interesting clash of interests - between the infrastructural needs of potentially <i>the</i> great city of the 21st century, and its cultural roots. You need a mix of both - you can't just turn SF into a grid of mega-skyscrapers, although that'd open the gates for great companies, and real progress - you need something of the old sense of city and style - but you can't just pretend the city can still function and thrive as a museum of genteel Victorians and arts and craft co-ops, while the future brews down in San Jose... You need capacity <i>and</i> character to build the launchpad of the future.